2 mic pres to get it all covered???

I'm quite new to this forum, and really to whole recording business. (I'm also sorry to throw in another mic pre-question!) I own a small project studio and I produce mostly stuff for TV & Radio (themes, jingles, commercials, etc.).

Currently I don't own any highest quality pres (just Focusrite Twin Track Pro and MindPrint En-Voice), but I happen to have about 5000$ to spend on pres, and I'd really appreciate any help/recommendations from you pro-dudes!

What I'd like to have is two different pres or channel strips (or what ever) to get as much possibilities and tones for tracking as possible. A great outboard eq and compressor in my signal chain would be nice too. I need to be able to deal with almost everything (vocals, speaks, Acoustic instruments, electric guitar amps, percussion...) and with lots of different music styles. I know, two pres aren't gonna cover it all, but with the right choices I think I could get pretty far...

I was thinking perhaps UA 6176 Channel Strip and
2ch Great River MP-2NV... What do you think?

This combination would leave me without a good outboard eq, but on the other hand I'd get the 1176.....

Thank you all!!

(ps. let's leave mics out of this, I have fortunately an access to quite impressive set of mics)

We have the 6167 strip and its wonderful to use, although it is very colored. Either way, you can reduce or boost gain to suit your needs so its flexible. the 1176 can be bypassed if you want extra color without compression. Other pres Ive had a good experience with? well, the langevin dual vocal combo is awesome and well worth the money, and the true systems precision 8 is very crisp and clean if that's what youre going for. so, no EQ but plenty of tones to work with... good luck

One unit that shines at "doing it all" is the Millennia ORIGIN. Just touching this unit is very satisfying. It has a wonderful tactile feel to all of the controls and very few pieces I know of compare. I do a lot of "showing" of mic pres to the local studio owners in my area ... and the one unit everyone is interested in, once they have seen heard and touched them is the ORIGIN.

It has the ability to switch between a tube pre or the acclaimed Millennia HV-3 solid state mic pre .. with or without a transformer in the input path ... You can switch the EQ and compressor section between tube or solid state topology separately from the mic pre ... so it will take you from super clean to very colored sounding with a lot of options in between.

The compressor section is electro optical and IMO is one of the best EL OPs I have ever used ... and I have used a lot of them. IMO, the ORIGIN is worth its price, just for the compressor.

protone,
Here is a link to a vocal/ acoustic guitar/ bass demo song I recorded using a U87ai and the ORIGIN. The bass was recorded direct through the ORIGINS DI input. I really like the sustain the compressor section adds to the bass solo part ... CLICK HERE

Kurt, you might want to post that clip elsewhere for the listeners sake, as the stream sounds like garbage. No offense to your track or it's work, just that it seems like a bad representation of an Origin.

Here is a band I tracked a year ago using simply a crappy Joe Meek VC3, Behringer mixer and PT Le 5.3. That crackly sound on the NoWhere Radio stream must be the site.... :roll:

M.
I have not had that problem .... but still I advise everyone to download the clip rather than stream it ... The quality will be much better that way. As always if anyone wants a CDr 16 bit 44.1 version of the clip I will be happy to provide it for $3.00, shipping and handling. Just drop a PM.

If ya want your digital stuff to sound wam and big you could try fing some Ampex 351 mic pre's...just get the electronics from an old Ampex and your away.....loads of head room. I have some API's and some Neve's 31115's, a John Hardy etc... but the 351's seem to end up our pre's of preference for vocal, acoustic instuments etc....and if you can fin 'em they shouldn't be more than a $1000.00 (for that they should be pristene) the right tubes, new caps etc help these 50 year old babies do their best. (BIG TRANSFORMERS! THEY CAN KILL!)

protone said:

Hi everyone!

I'm quite new to this forum, and really to whole recording business. (I'm also sorry to throw in another mic pre-question!) I own a small project studio and I produce mostly stuff for TV & Radio (themes, jingles, commercials, etc.).

Currently I don't own any highest quality pres (just Focusrite Twin Track Pro and MindPrint En-Voice), but I happen to have about 5000$ to spend on pres, and I'd really appreciate any help/recommendations from you pro-dudes!

What I'd like to have is two different pres or channel strips (or what ever) to get as much possibilities and tones for tracking as possible. A great outboard eq and compressor in my signal chain would be nice too. I need to be able to deal with almost everything (vocals, speaks, Acoustic instruments, electric guitar amps, percussion...) and with lots of different music styles. I know, two pres aren't gonna cover it all, but with the right choices I think I could get pretty far...

I was thinking perhaps UA 6176 Channel Strip and
2ch Great River MP-2NV... What do you think?

This combination would leave me without a good outboard eq, but on the other hand I'd get the 1176.....

Thank you all!!

(ps. let's leave mics out of this, I have fortunately an access to quite impressive set of mics)